Rebound (Boomerang #2)(66)

The door swings open, and Darla, from the clinic, comes into the room.

“Good afternoon,” she says cheerily, but even from across the suite, I can see that her mouth is set in a grim line.

“Hi,” I say, drawing the blanket hastily around me. “What—”

“Mr. Blackwood asked me to stop by and look in on you.”

“He did?” My brain is awash in static. I look at the window again, look around the room. Something’s wrong. “Where is he?”

She comes to the side of the bed and sets down a navy blue medical bag. Her broad, friendly face looks troubled. “Can I look at your ankle?”

“Of course.” I gather up the blankets, pulling them off my feet. “But what did Adam say?”

Darla focuses on unwrapping the bandage on my ankle. I can feel her weighing her words, and my heart starts a wild crashing in my chest.

“He left,” she says, finally. “He asked me to look in on you. And I know he made arrangements with the hotel. Paid for the room and all incidental charges.”

“Was there an emergency? Is everything okay?”

I pick up my phone from the nightstand and don’t see anything from Adam. No calls. No texts. Only one from Philippe, saying everyone got back safe and sound, and one from my father, nagging me for details.

Darla peels off the last of the gauze covering my foot. The bruise looks worse—mottled purple and yellow—but my ankle’s less swollen. “I’m pretty sure this is just a bad sprain,” she says. “But the roads are better. We can get you to the hospital for an X-ray if you want.”

What I want is to know where Adam is. I think back to last night, to his eyes on mine, to our connection, which felt truer than anything I’ve ever felt in my life. What happened between then and now? Where is he?

“Darla,” I press. “How did he look when he talked to you? Did he say anything else? I’m worried.”

She shakes her head. “He just looked . . . in a hurry. Distracted. He came by and gave us a ton of cash and asked us to make a house call up at the resort. Gave us his key card and your room number.”

“That’s it? Nothing else?” I brush my hair back from my face and try to map it in my mind. I half-remember a drowsy, affectionate conversation in the morning. He pulled the blankets over me, touched me sweetly. Smiled. Everything was fine. Or seemed fine, at least.

“He just said he’d cover any other expenses but that he had to go,” Darla tells me. She finishes rewrapping the bandage. “Why don’t you talk to the hotel? I know he talked to the manager and the concierge. Maybe they can tell you more.”

I nod, but in my mind, I keep reliving the steady, serious gravity of his eyes staring into mine.

“Do you want to go to the hospital?” Darla asks again.

I shake my head. “You’re pretty sure it’s a sprain?”

“Ninety percent.”

“I’ll take my chances then.” I want to be left alone. I need to get Adam on the phone, to find out what’s happened.

Darla offers me a painkiller, and my ankle hurts enough that I take it.

“All right,” Darla says. “We’re in good shape here.”

You might be, I think.

She props my crutches next to the bed and brings over a robe and a change of clothes. “The concierge is standing by to assist you,” she tells me. “Anything you need. Help with anything. Just ask. Can I help you change before I go? Take you to the bathroom?”

As if I don’t feel humiliated enough. “No, I’ll be okay. Thanks for your help.”

She goes, and I pick up the phone to call Adam. My pulse spikes, and I feel like I can’t swallow.

My call goes straight to voicemail.

I pick up the phone to text him, but I can’t find the words. Where are you? Why did you leave? Did I imagine everything about last night—about us?

I’m scared of what he’ll say. Scared that I’ve been so wrong about him—about everything.

Where is he?

A powerful desire pulses in me. A need to dull things, to blunt the ragged fear coursing through my body. I can’t sit with it. I’m scared to feel what it will mean if he’s left me here. If he never really cared about me.

I struggle up with the help of my crutches and hobble across the room. Everything feels strange, vertiginous, like I’m going to plummet through the floor or fly off into the atmosphere. My ankle lashes me with pain, and it seems to take me forever to cross the few yards to the mini bar.

There I unscrew a small bottle of Absolut and gulp it down straight. Then I do the same with a bottle of Tanqueray, chased with a slightly larger bottle of white wine. So thoughtful of the Four Seasons to keep so much in stock.

For a second, I think I’m going to be sick, but I breathe, get ahold of myself, feel the warmth of the alcohol spread through me. With the painkillers, it’s a different kind of buzz, like having my brain encased in plastic. The room is a boat, and I’m riding wave after wave. I can’t feel my face or my hands. Or much of anything. Which is what I wanted.

I make it, barely, back to the bed and sink onto it, throwing my crutches onto the floor, the whole bed swaying. The pain in my ankle’s remote now. The room stretches around me, growing cavernous, white and sterile like a mausoleum.